Ecuador: British businessman and former consul Colin Armstrong kidnapped from home

The 78-year-old was driven away in his own BMW alongside his Colombian partner, according to a police report

A British businessman and the former UK honorary consul in Guayaquil, Colin Armstrong, has been kidnapped by hooded men at his home in Ecuador’s Los Rios province, according to police reports.

Armstrong, 78, was snatched in the early hours of Saturday alongside a Colombian woman identified as his partner Katherine Paola Santos from his home in the town of Baba, according to a police report seen by the Guardian. He was driven away in his own black BMW, which was later found dumped, the report said.

Continue reading...

Lead contamination in applesauce possibly ‘economically motivated’, says FDA

Food and Drug Administration is investigating facility in Ecuador and working with authorities to inspect cinnamon supplier

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday said it thinks elevated levels of lead in cinnamon applesauce that has poisoned dozens of American children could be linked to deliberate additives in the food’s cinnamon flavoring, and is inspecting a food facility in Ecuador.

There have been more than 60 reports of children reporting “adverse effects” after eating applesauce and apple puree pouches from the brands WanaBana, Schnucks and Weis. The products have been recalled.

Continue reading...

Environmental crime money easy to stash in US due to loopholes, report finds

Secrecy and lax oversight mean illegal loggers and miners in Amazon can park billions in real estate and other assets

Secrecy and lax oversight have made the US a hiding place for dirty money accrued by environmental criminals in the Amazon rainforest, a report says.

Illegal loggers and miners are parking sums ranging from millions to billions of dollars in US real estate and other assets, says the report, which calls on Congress and the White House to close loopholes in financial regulations that it says are contributing to the destruction of the world’s biggest tropical forest.

Continue reading...

Banana fortune heir Daniel Noboa wins Ecuador presidential election

Luisa González, handpicked by Rafael Correa as successor, loses to 35-year-old who promises tough line on violent crime and cocaine trafficking

Daniel Noboa, the heir to a banana fortune who pledges a hard line on rocketing violent crime, employment for the young and foreign investment, will become Ecuador’s youngest ever president at 35 after winning by a margin of around five points over his rival, the leftist lawyer Luisa González.

With 90% of votes counted on Sunday night in Ecuador, Noboa had 52.29% of the vote against 47.71% for González, according to Ecuador’s electoral council.

Continue reading...

‘People are dying in the street’: Ecuador election overshadowed by violent crime

The country goes to the polls this weekend after a campaign marked by bloodshed and the assassination of a candidate

Ecuadoreans will this weekend choose between a centre-right presidential candidate who is the scion of one of country’s wealthiest families, and a leftist disciple of the former president Rafael Correa, in an election overshadowed by violent crime and the assassination of a third candidate.

Polls ahead of Sunday’s vote put the banana industry heir Daniel Noboa, 35, slightly ahead of Luisa González, who has promised free medicine and increased worker protections.

Continue reading...

Politicians, not public, drive U-turns on green agenda, says UN biodiversity chief

People are ahead of governments, says David Cooper, who blames backtracking on parties seeking ‘wedge issues’ for electoral gain

Government backtracking on environmental promises is being driven by politicians and vested interests, not the public, the acting UN biodiversity chief has said, as he called for greater support for those experiencing short-term costs from green policies.

David Cooper, acting executive secretary for the UN convention on biological diversity (CBD), told the Guardian he believed the public mood was not moving against greater environmental protections, and that vested interests opposed to action on the climate crisis and nature loss were trying to frustrate progress.

Continue reading...

Six suspects in murder of Ecuador presidential candidate killed in prison, authorities say

The six Colombians had been arrested on the day Fernando Villavicencio was shot dead in August

Six men suspected of involvement in the August murder of Ecuador’s anti-corruption presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio have been killed in prison, the prisons agency has said, barely a week before a crucial run-off election.

The killings took place on Friday in a penitentiary in Guayaquil, the South American country’s largest city, the attorney general’s office announced earlier.

Continue reading...

Galápagos Islands tightens biosecurity as avian flu threatens unique species

Scientists confirm three birds have died from virus as park authorities redouble efforts to protect islands’ endemic birds

National park authorities on the Galápagos Islands have heightened biosecurity measures to protect the archipelago’s unique fauna from the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza after scientists confirmed that three birds had died from the virus.

“From preliminary tests of the five specimens, three of them have tested positive for H5N1 avian influenza,” Danny Rueda, director of the Galápagos national park told the Guardian. Two frigate birds and one red-footed booby were confirmed to have died from the virus on Tuesday, after samples were sent to Guayaquil on the Ecuadorian mainland for examination.

Continue reading...

Guards and police released after being held hostage in Ecuadorian prisons

Fifty-seven law enforcement officers held in six prisons amid sharp rise in gang violence ahead of election

Fifty guards and seven police officers have been released, Ecuadorian authorities said, after being held hostage in several prisons for more than a day.

The country’s corrections system, the National Service for Attention to Persons Deprived of Liberty, said in a statement that the 57 law enforcement officers, who were held in six different prisons, were safe, but did not offer details about how they were released.

Continue reading...

Ecuadorians vote to halt oil drilling in biodiverse Amazonian national park

Referendum result protecting Yasuní reserve will benefit huge range of species as well as ‘uncontacted’ Indigenous peoples

Ecuadorians have voted in a historic referendum to halt the development of all new oilwells in the Yasuní national park in the Amazon, one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet.

Voters opted to safeguard the unique biosphere by a margin of nearly 20% with more than 90% of the ballot counted – with more than 58% in favour and 41% against, according to Ecuador’s National Electoral Comission. Voting took place in the first round of presidential elections on Sunday.

Continue reading...

Ally of former leftist Ecuador president to face tycoon’s son in runoff election

Luisa González, who has pledged to revive Rafael Correa’s social programmes, to run against Daniel Noboa in October

A protege of Ecuador’s former leftist president Rafael Correa will face the son of one of the country’s richest men in a runoff presidential vote in October, after first-round voting on Sunday failed to produce an outright winner.

With more than three-quarters of ballots counted, Luisa González, who has promised to revive Correa’s social programmes, was tallying just over 33% support, while Daniel Noboa, the son of the prominent banana businessman and former presidential candidate Álavaro Noboa, was on 24%.

Continue reading...

Ecuadorians vote for new president in election marred by candidate’s murder

Security is high since the murder of Fernando Villavicencio as candidates hope to overturn crime rates and a struggling economy

Ecuadorians are voting to choose a new president they hope will lead the country out of a wave of violence and economic troubles, after a campaign darkened by bloodshed.

Candidates have pledged to fight sharp increases in crime, which the current government blames on drug gangs, and improve the struggling economy, whose woes have caused a rise in unemployment and migration.

Continue reading...

Ecuador prepares for ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ vote to stop oil drilling

Referendum alongside presidential election will decide whether to halt extraction in Amazon national park

As Ecuadorians go to the polls on Sunday they must not only decide between eight presidential candidates but also vote on an unprecedented referendum question that could set a new course for the oil-reliant nation.

The poll will decide whether to halt drilling at the Yasuní Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) oilfield, also known as oil block 43, which lies in an Amazon national park and one of the world’s richest pockets of biodiversity. Ecuador’s largest protected area is also home to the Waorani people and the country’s last Indigenous communities in voluntary isolation, the Tagaeri and Taromenane.

Continue reading...

Ecuador election: assassination looms large as voters prepare to go to polls

Winner of Sunday’s vote will face huge public demand to tackle violence after killing of candidate Fernando Villavicencio

The brazen assassination of a presidential candidate will hang heavy over Ecuadorian voters as they choose a new president this weekend, following the latest eruption of drug cartel violence in the once-peaceful nation.

The winner of Sunday’s vote will face an overwhelming public demand for security – but may not have the budget or the political capital to overhaul failed crime-fighting policies and fund new ones.

Continue reading...

Third politician in a month killed in Ecuador

Citizen Revolution party’s Pedro Briones fatally shot less than a week after assassination of presidential candidate

The unprecedented violence shaking Ecuador has claimed the life of another political leader, bringing the number of politics-related killings in the last four weeks to three, including that of a presidential candidate.

The fatal shooting of Pedro Briones a organiser for Citizen Revolution, the party of the former president Rafael Correa, was confirmed by Luisa González, the frontrunner in Sunday’s special presidential election and a member of the same party.

Continue reading...

‘I’m not afraid’: Ecuador’s assassinated presidential candidate who fought the cartels

Killing of Fernando Villavicencio ahead of elections comes as country struggles with surge in drug-related violence

Millions of Ecuadorians will have seen the phone camera footage showing the last seconds before presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was killed, shot through the windows of a white pickup truck after being escorted by unarmed policemen who were helpless to save him.

The images that followed showed panic and chaos as the burst of gunfire sent screaming supporters to the ground. Another clip filmed inside the campaign meeting, which Villavicencio had just left, showed panicked followers fleeing or ducking for cover and bloodstains on the tiled floor.

Continue reading...

Andrea González picked to replace Ecuador’s assassinated presidential candidate

Fernando Villavicencio fatally shot last week after leaving a campaign event in capital, Quito

The political party of Ecuador’s assassinated presidential hopeful, Fernando Villavicencio, picked its vice-presidential candidate to replace him on Saturday, just a week before the election.

Villavicencio’s Build party, or Construye in Spanish, announced on social media that Andrea González was replacing the 59-year-old as its presidential candidate in the 20 August vote.

Continue reading...

Ecuador’s descent into violence reaches new low with candidate’s assassination

Shock and horror after Fernando Villavicencio, who campaigned on tough-on-crime platform, killed in burst of gunfire in Quito

Ecuador’s terrifying descent into violence and criminality has reached a new low with the assassination in broad daylight of a presidential candidate campaigning on a tough-on-crime and anti-graft platform.

Fernando Villavicencio, a former journalist who had collaborated with the Guardian, was shot and killed in a burst of gunfire on a street in Quito as he left a campaign rally on Wednesday evening. Gunfire broke out as the candidate approached his car, sending supporters screaming and diving for cover.

Continue reading...

Thursday briefing: Inside South America’s summit to save the Amazon

In today’s newsletter: After years of rampant exploitation under a far-right government, Brazil has brought together leaders to help secure the future of the world’s biggest rainforest – and create ‘a just ecological transition’

Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First Edition

Good morning. “I think the world needs to see this meeting in Belém as the most important landmark ever … when it comes to discussing the climate question.” For once you can forgive the hyperbole of Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, when he spoke about this week’s Amazon summit.

Leaders from the eight South American countries that share the river basin have been meeting this week in the Brazilian city to discuss an issue that, by any measure, is a global emergency: how to protect the vast rainforest and safeguard its critical role in regulating the planetary climate.

Education | Rising costs and family needs could force one in three students starting university this year to opt to live at home, according to new research. While some of the “Covid generation” of school-leavers said they planned to live at home because their preferred university was nearby, most said they could not afford to live away from home.

Northern Ireland | The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office has launched an investigation into an unprecedented data breach that disclosed details of more than 10,000 police officers and staff in Northern Ireland. The agency, which regulates data privacy laws, is working with the Police Service of Northern Ireland to establish the level of risk amid warnings that the leak may compel officers to leave the force or move their home address.

Hawaii | Six people were killed after unprecedented wildfires tore through the Hawaiian island of Maui. The fires, fanned by strong winds from Hurricane Dora, destroyed businesses in the historic town of Lahaina, and left at least two dozen people injured.

Ecuador | Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was shot dead at a campaign rally on Wednesday. The country’s president, Guillermo Lasso, said he was “outraged and shocked by the assassination” and would convene a meeting of his security cabinet.

Media | Employees at ITV’s This Morning were allegedly subjected to “bullying, discrimination and harassment”, according to staff members who have spoken out after Phillip Schofield’s departure from the programme. Some workers claim they attempted to raise concerns about the programme only to face “further bullying and discrimination” by bosses for speaking out.

Continue reading...

Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio assassinated

Anti-corruption figure killed days before election amid sharp rise in violent and organised crime

The Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio has been shot dead as he left a campaign event in Quito, days before an election where the central issue is rising violence and crime.

Videos on social media show Villavicencio, a former journalist who had collaborated with the Guardian and was outspoken about alleged links between organised crime and politics, surrounded by supporters and being escorted by security guards to a waiting vehicle when gunshots ring out as people start to scream and take cover.

Continue reading...